


this must be the place (you must be the one)

by kuro49



Series: that inevitable high school au [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Teen Titans (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bottom Jason Todd, Consensual Underage Sex, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 13:53:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15366084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: The lesson to learn here is this: life goes on regardless of whether Dick made out a little (a lot) with his brother-not-brother.Before that, there is some growing up to do.





	this must be the place (you must be the one)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fleet_of_red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleet_of_red/gifts).



> i was like 5k deep into this when the regret started hitting me hard because i could have done high school locker room porn and stopped it at that but my brain decides i can only have that after 8k of build up first. i hope my recipient gets a kick out of this because my god, this fic ran away from me.
> 
> this is my first time joining an exchange in the dc fandom so thank you to the mods at jaydick summer blues for hosting this event! also, a million thanks to ka and atom for the beta, this fic wouldn't be half of what it is without you guys, like really, the first draft was a disaster.

 

To say Bruce Wayne has a soft spot for sob stories and charity cases is a bit of an understatement.

The public has no idea where he finds them, but they eat it right up. Richard John Grayson is tailor made for the first one and Jason Peter Todd is made out of a mold for the second. Bruce adopts them almost six years apart, each time making a splash in the tabloids for a week or so until his next gala appearance, a girl on each arm and then one more to round out the night.

Alfred tells Jason it is all for show to take the spotlight off of him.

Jason can’t help but read into that as though he is part of that same show.

Reality goes like this for him: Good things happen to good people, they do not happen to him.

 

 

Even with the paperwork in motion, Bruce’s signature on every piece of it securing a future he never thought he would have, Jason is sure the shine will wear off soon enough. He doesn’t say it, not out loud at least. But it’s not hard to see where he is coming from when he feels like a stray that have wandered into the wrong house, tracking mud wherever he goes.

They are standing in the foyer of the Wayne Manor, Jason next to Bruce in front of—

“Dick,” Bruce starts, standing between his sons to make the introductions.

“ _Dick_?” Jason cuts in, incredulously.

Bruce makes a minute shift in facial expression that betrays the bone deep headache settling in, the kind that starts at the base of the skull to radiate to the forefront of the brain. The kind that the man usually reserves for a densely packed schedule of Wayne Enterprise board meetings. “It’s Richard but he—”

“It’s _Dick_.” His eldest cuts in without pause, a determined set to his jaw.

“I respect that.” Jason says. He doesn’t, not really but he can play civil too when he wants to. “Nice to meet you, brother of mine.”

He extends his hand and it’s all a bit formal as they shake on it.

“Ditto.” Dick says as he pulls back from the handshake, and Jason fully anticipated the potential _kiddo_ to come after that.

Black hair, blue eyes, and a smile smoothed over in place of any actual emotions he can read, Dick Grayson looks every part of the expected heir of a billionaire. The Gotham Academy uniform looking meticulously pressed just about cinches the deal even if that detail is probably all Alfred Pennyworth. He knows there is little for comparison between them, Jason coming up short in every category and then some.

“Starting next week, Jason’s going to be your underclassman.”

Dick’s pristine smile goes a little crooked but softer and warmer at that. It is everything Jason has no prior experience with, and the reflexive way he widens his stance just about looks as though he is entirely prepared for a fight.

Dick glances to Bruce, then back to Jason, and doesn’t look away. Because Dick Grayson means his next words as a promise even if it is an unintended one.

“Guess that means I’m taking you under my wing, Jay.”

 

 

He keeps his own last name.

They both do.

And Jason doesn’t want to make it a deal at all but here they are roaring on to school grounds atop Dick’s motorcycle, kicking up debris where there’s none. Even obscured underneath the spare helmet Dick purposely bought for him, delight in the way the obnoxiously bright red contrasts with anything Jason can own, Jason Todd can feel the attention on him like spiders creeping across his body.

He is terse when he says his thanks, lets go of Dick before they can even pull to a complete stop. With the engine hot and the key still in the ignition, Jason is climbing off the bike from behind Dick and tugging off his helmet. The truth is that he wants to run, and Jason knows that is exactly how it looks.

Frankly, Dick won’t have that, and he takes his time with reaching out to take the helmet from Jason’s hands.

“Want me to take you to your first class, Jase?”

“Do you want to hold my books too, Dickie?”

Jason ignores the dejected way Dick hugs the red of the helmet to his chest, doesn’t let it get to him when it only tempts him to reach out and soothe over the downwards tilt of that mouth on Dick.

If just to make this easier for them both when he sees how tense Jason goes, the answering sigh Dick lets out is loud and over the top. “I'll meet you here at three then?”

Jason rubs a hand through his hair, ruins all of Alfred’s work. Even if he knows it for what it is, he doesn't react well to kindness. But he's trying for something that might be compromise no matter how much this feels like a losing battle when he is here giving in to the patented Grayson smile.

“I can do that.”

This is already way more than what Dick thought he would get out of Jason. The two of them are on the upwards portion of this learning curve, playing at being brothers. It is easy for Dick to relent and let Jason go with that half-hearted wave tossed back in his direction.

It is then that the bright red of Wally’s hair enters Dick’s peripheral vision, like he’s been waiting off to the side for the right moment to interrupt.

“Your brother?” Wally asks, curious.

Dick nods, wincing slightly at the wide berth Jason cuts into the morning crowd. His uniform might match everyone else’s but Jason is unlike anyone else here, and the thing is, everyone knows this too. This is his first day at Gotham Academy and Dick already has an idea the kind of first impression his little brother is going to leave for the rest of the student body.

“He’s adopted.” Dick explains.

“Aren’t you adopted too?” Wally asks like he doesn’t know that for a fact.

“I make an effort not to draw attention to that.”

“Your dad’s Bruce Wayne and now _his_ dad’s Bruce Wayne too,” Wally laughs in his face before he is slinging an arm over his best friend’s shoulder to lead him through the front doors of the school, “good luck with that.”

Unlike most things, Wally isn’t actually wrong on this one. Dick knows he needs all the luck he can get if he wants to get through the rest of the year in any resemblance of peace when he finally gathers the courage to come clean to Bruce.

The future is an ominous thing.

 

 

“Your brother’s a bit of a loner, isn’t he?”

They have about ten more minutes until the end of their lunch period when Roy’s question drags everyone’s attention towards the end of the hall.

Dick blinks, a little bit distracted in his search for that notebook he borrowed from Donna once upon some time last week. It doesn’t help that she is tapping a foot against the floor while Dick has his head buried deep inside the guts of his locker, positive that he put it in his bag last night at Alfred’s insistence to tidy up his room.

Looking up to follow the line of Roy’s gaze, Dick finds Jason standing at his locker all on his own, shedding a leather jacket that is most definitely not part of Gotham Academy’s dress code. Dick doesn’t want to sound defensive but he’s protective, even if Jason probably doesn’t need or want him to be.

“Jay’s barely been here for two weeks, give him some time.”

Roy looks at him with his head tilted towards Jason and they all turn in time to see the way the students around Jason flinch when he slams his locker door shut with a little more force than necessary.

“Just sayin’, Dick.” Roy starts, not quite able to look away when Jason turns in their direction. “I don’t think the kid’s trying very hard either.”

None of them looks away when Jason makes his way over, grimacing the entire time at the lot of them like he would really rather be anywhere else but here. Stopping in front of Dick, Jason continues to openly glare at Roy.

“Call me a kid again, Harper. I dare you.” Roy puts up both hands in surrender, only remembering to breathe out when Jason turns to his adopted brother next. Dick is still crouched in front of his opened locker when Jason drops the notebook he’s been looking for right into his hands. “This isn’t mine.”

He turns and walks away at that.

They all watch, and it isn’t until he is halfway down the hall that Kori is turning to Roy to ask the question that is running through everyone’s mind. “How does he know your last name?”

“We’re in the same chemistry class.” Roy blinks at them like he is the one confused. “He’s my lab partner.”

“You take _ninth_ grade chemistry?” Dick asks after a collective pause when what Roy said really sinks in.

Roy turns to them with a serious expression on his face and these are some famous last words none of them are ever going to let him live down. “Did you guys know you can’t graduate without it?”

“Roy Harper,” Barbara says, the disbelief accusing in the blue of her eyes, “please don’t repeat that ever again.”

The way she says it sounds a lot like a mercy kill. Dick would join in, but he’s a little bit distracted with keeping an eye on Jason before he can disappear around the corner. There is something jarring to seeing his brother alone when he is surrounded by friends. He hands Donna back her notebook with an apologetic grin, darts off from between them with a call back. “Don’t let Wally steal my seat in Mr. Wilson’s class!”

Donna locks up his locker door properly with a soft exasperated sigh while Barbara waves their boy blunder off with a roll of her eyes.

 

Hero-complex be damned, he is not _heartless_.

Dick has to jog a little to catch up to Jason, and when he does, Jason looks more than a little lost that he is chasing him down. Maybe this is what he is reacting to, maybe he is drawn to being that helping hand. But Jason cuts him off before Dick can say a thing.

“You don’t have to go out of your way to be nice to me." Jason says. "My feelings won’t be hurt.”

 _But mine will_ , Dick doesn’t say.

Tugging a hand through the ends of his hair, Dick steels himself to tell him this instead. “I’m not going out of my way to do anything I don’t want to. You and I might not have asked for this, but Bruce made us family and I'm glad he did.”

Dick sorely wants this to be clear to Jason even if everything else is not, except.

“Big words for a big bleeding heart, Dick.” Jason says in place of everything. Crime Alley’s taught him a great deal of things, and this is just one of those things. He is bravado all the way down to his bones. “I’m fine on my own.”

Dick wants to reach out to take hold of Jason, and perhaps shake the insecurity he refuses to admit to out of him. But he doesn't.

“Have lunch with us tomorrow? Y’know, before you find people you actually want to hang out with instead of—”

The first bell rings.

Classroom doors open with a bang, and students flood the hall like ants. If Dick doesn’t get going now, he is bound to be late and Jason is counting on that. Jason smiles at him like he’s won, tossing him another half-hearted wave of his hand as he turns to leave.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll see you at three, Dickie.”

Jason’s parting shot has Dick feeling lost when he finally loses him in the crowd for good.

 

 

People are creatures of comfort and as much as he tries, Jason isn’t all that different.

Every Thursday, Dick has his gymnastics club meeting after school. Outside the gymnasium and behind the bleachers, Jason will stretch out on the grass and take his time with a cigarette or two while he waits. The smell of nicotine that settles in the air around him reminds him of all the good parts of a not so good childhood. Sometimes he is alone, sometimes Bizarro joins him. Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t.

Kids call the man weird, then bizarre, and somewhere along the way, the school janitor himself picks it up and Bizarro kind of stuck.

Jason meets Biz on quite the literal collision course. In another attempt to avoid Dick’s invitation to join him and his posse of redheads, Jason runs straight into the mountain of a man when he ducks into the janitor’s closet. They become friends, and it is easy in the sparse conversation they share when Jason spends his lunch period with Biz while the man is burning the flammable trash behind the school or cleaning out the leaves from the outdoor pool.

Maybe it is a little bit strange how Jason makes a habit of seeking the school janitor out. But Biz doesn’t see him as anything else other than the kid that physically ran into him. He is not Bruce Wayne’s son, he is not Dick Grayson’s brother. He is not an outcast or a charity case or any other choice words Jason knows is used just for him when he is out of hearing range.

This time he is sitting with Bizarro and he watches as Biz glances up before the man is standing to brush the grass from himself. That is almost as telling as the crunch of leaves coming from behind him.

Jason lets him go, waving as the man leaves, calling out to him with ease. “See you tomorrow, Biz.”

There is a chill in the air and it has nothing to do with the setting sun. Jason tips his head back just enough to see Dick standing over him.

“I didn’t know the janitor smokes.”

The butts littered next to him should be indication enough, but he has a lit cigarette held precariously between two fingers. Breathe in, smoke in his lungs, breathe out. Jason wishes Dick wouldn’t give him such a blatant out of this. “Biz doesn’t.”

“Does Bruce know?”

“That I'm friends with the school janitor?” Jason grins, all teeth and not at all kind.

“You know what I mean.”

“Probably, but what is he going to do? Throw me back on the streets?” Jason says, turning his head and blowing out a thin wisp of smoke away from Dick’s face. It is easy to fit right into that expectation the world has of him. "Been there, done that.”

“Jay.” Dick says his name like it is a warning, and it might as well be one.

"Force of habit." Jason says instead of an apology. He is not deliberate even if he can be, he is not cutting with every edge of every word and that has to count for something. But he knows Dick hates it when he talks about himself in that flippant way he does, puts himself right back into the gutter where he has somehow deluded this new family of his into thinking he doesn't belong. “No lecture?”

“Not really my place, Jase. I'm your brother, not your keeper.” Dick tells him with a half smile and tilts his head in the direction of the parking lot. “Ready to go home?”

“Thought you’ll never ask.” Jason gets up to follow him, reaches out to grab his bag only to close his fingers around air.

He raises an eyebrow as he watches Dick take both of their bags to shrug them over his shoulder. Dick doesn’t say a thing, and so Jason doesn’t either. His eyes simply track the line of Dick’s shoulders in that letterman jacket of his, finishing the last breath of his cigarette as he follows him off of school grounds.

 

 

Dick doesn’t think Jason can be a bigger cliché if he tried. But the thing is, if Jason is a cliché, then Dick is probably just as much of one to match because Jason is not the one who caught a fist to the face.

“I had that under control.” Jason says, stern in the way his mouth stays still in that scowl.

Dick would roll his eyes if he could see past the ice pack he has over his black eye because Jason wasn’t the one turning the corner of the north building only to find his little brother being backed into a corner by Roman Sionis. No, that was Dick and Dick feels inclined to point this out, “he had you backed up into a _literal_ corner.”

“He had me right where I wanted to be.”

Dick gives him a weird expression at that. “Want to rephrase that?”

“Not particularly, I know what I'm doing.” Jason tells him, almost nonchalant at being caught in a fist fight barely a month into his enrollment at Gotham Academy. “And my face takes a punch better than yours.”

“I can’t just let Roman punch you in the face.” Dick wants to say he is doing his best, he is making every attempt to be the big brother Bruce wants him to be. He thinks taking a punch for Jason might just cement that. Throwing in a praise or two can’t hurt either even if everything else does. “And your face is good too.”

Dick is sitting at the kitchen table with the contents of Alfred’s first aid kit in disarray around him. His face hurts and he is pretty sure Jason is making it a point to him when he doesn't come back with any of the good drugs to dull the pain.

“Are you purposely fishing for a compliment?”

“I told you, Jason. You’re under my wing now, so I'm going to keep you safe.” There is nothing ironic in the way he says it and maybe that is the worst part for Jason. Dick would laugh if it didn’t hurt so much when he sees Jason turn his head away in embarrassment, the red going to his ears and extending down past his neck.  “You’re my little wing.”

Jason resolutely does not respond to that, just comes back over to Dick and motions for him to move the ice pack away. Dick follows the instructions that go unsaid, tipping his head to Jason as he settles his fingers over Dick’s nose. There is enough anticipation to what comes next that has Dick holding his breath, but Jason waits for that exhale when the lack of oxygen becomes too much before he moves to realign Dick’s nose.

The shock of the pain is startling.

It has his eyes watering and the choked off little noise that he lets out is telling. Dick doesn’t think he can take another punch, not even for Jason, and maybe that is the lesson of the day.

“Now keep that ice pack to your face and make sure the swelling goes down. I don’t need your fanclub coming after me for being the reason why your pretty face is wrecked and your perfect nose is dislocated.”

“I don’t have a fanclub.” Dick is faint in his protest, only slightly distracted by the practiced way Jason cleans up his scraped-up knuckles beginning to turn that first shade of purpling bruising.

“What about those people that are always with you?”

“Friends?” Dick tilts his head in a question right back.

“And they're all red heads because?"

Dick thinks of Wally, Barbara, Kori, and Roy. And okay, maybe that is a valid point when Jason says it like that. “I might have a type?"

“In friends,” Jason echoes back at him with a smirk as he finally hands him the good pain killers.

Dick takes the water on offer in silence and doesn’t say anything more because it’s most definitely Dick’s turn to go red.

 

 

The manor is a big place but their bedrooms are close to one another.

It could be a deliberate choice made by Bruce and Alfred to create the resemblance of family in a home with as many ghosts as this one but mostly it is just convenient to share and clean one bathroom when it connects their rooms together.

A month into Jason’s stay at Wayne Manor, Dick finds him wandering the halls, listening to the shuffle of his own footsteps against the carpet that absorbs that too.

“Quiet’s one thing. I can handle quiet.” Jason tells him in the lull of the night. “But this silence is something else.”

Dick can imagine it. He can see Jason falling asleep listening to the noises of Gotham’s streets through the thin walls of another temporary home. The silence gets to Jason in the same way an itch he cannot reach does. It crawls under his skin when each of them goes their separate ways to settle in for the night, and he can scratch at it all he wants but it doesn’t go away when it is all the way inside his bones.

After all, Dick remembers his first night here too.

Without closing the distance between them, Dick recounts the years of the same cramped caravan, three people to a box with the dimensions of the width of this hallway. Dick offers up the same stories told after every show, told loud enough to drown out the crackling bonfire right in the center of his circus troupe.

He tells Jason about the big top that he’s lived in before this home, tells him about the little details not even Bruce knows. He also admits to Jason about the home he’s made of this one too.

The two of them still has school in the morning but when Dick goes back to bed, he leaves his door open. Jason’s footsteps are quiet but not silent when he comes back in from the hallway to settle into his own bed.

“Night, Jay.” Dick calls out and it echoes like a murmur in their corner of this home.

 

 

Their doors remain open every night after that.

Three months into this arrangement, Jason is walking into Dick’s bedroom without bothering with knocking.

“I know what you’re doing.”

Dick looks up from where he is stretched out on his bed with his textbook and notes sprawled around him. He is calm, he is collected. He is not hiding a thing, he swears. “And what's that?”

Jason simply holds up a stack of red solo cups in answer.

Dick doesn’t bite the eraser at the top of his pencil off, he offers this instead. “You’re invited.”

“I _live_ here.”

“It'll be fun—” Dick starts only to be cut off just as quickly.

“For you,” Jason clarifies.

“It’s my last year of high school, I think I deserve some fun.” Dick sits up, drawing Jason’s eyes to him while he crosses his legs on top of the sheets. He leans forward while keeping his voice low. “Bruce and Alfred are going to be away for the annual Wayne Enterprise weekend retreat. They leave Friday afternoon, the party is Friday night, Saturday is for sobering up, and Sunday is clean up.”

“You thought of everything.”

Dick leans back and gives him a wide grin. “I’ve been doing this since freshman year, Jay.”

Jason actually whistles at that. “Didn’t think you could surprise me, circus boy.”

And of course, Dick just grins wider because the weirdo would actually _like_ being called that.

“That's not the insult you were hoping it to be.”

Jason drops the stack of red solo cups on Dick’s bed and walks out with a warning that Dick hears as more teasing than anything really. “Don’t test me, Dick. I know what you’re doing now.”

His voice carries through in the stretch of hallway full of closed doors and empty rooms. It echoes in their lived in little corner and settles right inside of them both with ease.

 

 

Friday night comes, and Brucie Wayne’s toys are being put to their use.

The stereo system is pounding something loud and something fun that gets girl after girl dancing to the catchy thrum of the bass. The lights keep the corners of the room basking in some sort of mellowed-out mood, coloured in that deep red hue that changes at intervals to settle into blue and then back again.

The alcohol is flowing, shots and diluted beer and what is most likely to be tequila being dumped into every red solo cup left unattended on every possible flat surface.

Dick is laughing at how Wally is dancing like the disaster that he is next to Artemis and Zatanna. He takes a sip of the cup Barbara pressed into his hands just a couple of minutes ago and it’s fruity and sweet and strong.

“Holy _shit_ , Babs. What am I drinking?”

“I call it Oracle. It’s my signature drink.” She tells him to the stupefied expression on his face. She laughs and it is a very good sound that gets drowned out by someone’s choice of what is probably alternative music.

Dick has long since lost control of his party playlist; he thinks he had an eye on his phone until Kori got a hold of it. She is skipping one song after another to the cheers of someone on the opposite end of the room but then both of her hands were on Roy, _all_ over Roy, and Dick isn’t quite so sure he wants to know where his phone is at that point.

He goes right where Barbara drags him. She isn’t really dancing but she is swaying to the music and he with her. Dick lets her goad him into downing the rest of her signature drink only to pour him two more, lets her lean over to pat him hard on the back with something like terrible influence when he finishes those too.

Barbara leaves him to share an armchair with Wally when she catches sight of a couple of her other friends showing up among the late comers. He squints underneath the red glow of the room and thinks that it might be Steph and Cass. Dick waves from where he has an elbow digging into Wally’s side, the two of them sitting in one another’s space and not giving an inch.

Wally is talking to Kaldur with Dick only following every other word of their conversation. But then again, the two of them can have an extended discussion on fish tacos alone when they are sober, so he is not entirely sure how much sense the two of them while tipsy can make.

“ _Dickhead_ , pizza’s here!”

The loud shout comes somewhere in his vicinity, it sounds a lot like Roy and has him blinking the haze from his eyes. He thinks it is Donna that pulls him to his feet if only by the strength behind the way she has him shuffling towards the manor door.

Dick pats himself down for his wallet while Roy looks on with a roll of his eyes. Both of them anticipate the next words, even the Pizza Fish delivery boy standing there with enough boxes stacked on top of one another in his arms to hide his eyes from view didn’t seem particularly surprised when Dick comes up empty.

“Um, be back in five?”

Roy waves him off while Pizza Fish nods reluctantly, the two of them watching Dick ease his way through the scatter of people to navigate his way upstairs to where he last remembered seeing his wallet with an alcohol fuzzy memory.

Roy rolls his eyes once more for good measures before nodding at Pizza Fish, "hey Garth."

Garth nods right back at him with an easy tip of his Pizza Fish cap. "Could you hold these for me, Roy? I've got about a dozen more on the back of my Vespa."

He goes, he comes back with another dozen boxes in his hands.

Five turns to ten turns to an unbearable fifteen minutes.

It is Kori who comes to Roy’s rescue at minute twenty when she hands over Dick’s wallet from the same place where she found his phone.

“Thank _you_ , princess.” Roy breathes out in relief. Kori gets a quick press of Roy’s mouth to hers, Garth gets a nice tip on a gold card Roy plucks out of the mess of receipts and cards and candy wrappers. The pizza is not as hot or gooey but still greasy good when everyone converges in the kitchen to have a slice.

Nobody sees Dick the rest of the night but that doesn’t register until much later.

 

 

Drunk Dick doesn’t know this, but drunk Dick is single-minded.

So when he jogs up the stairs and stands at the landing with his hands braced on his knees, trying his hardest not to vomit all over the carpets, Roy already lost him. In the inexplicable rush, he thinks he might be forgetting something but then his stomach is turning and all he can focus on is reprimanding himself for drinking too much too quick and all of Babs’ special brews too.

“Upstairs is off limi—”

Dick turns his head to the sound of that voice and sees the dark red of Jason’s hoodie before he actually sees Jason standing a good distance down the hall, peering out from his bedroom. His contented grin goes downright delighted as he turns his focus on the next best thing since his very successful attempt at not throwing up on the carpets.

“ _There_ you are, little wing.”

Dick might feel a whole lot woozy but he is still having a good time, and he can be having a better time now that he’s got Jay right here with him too. He is quick to take the necessary steps to close the distance between them until he is standing in front of Jason with a sway to his stance, blinking just a bit slow while he registers the set of black-framed glasses Jason has on.

Jason almost wants to laugh at how happy Dick looks because of course, drunk Dick can somehow make sober Dick seem like a bummer.

“Jay,” he looks around, down the empty hallway where he came and behind Jason to his equally empty bedroom, sees him on his own and his grin goes flat. “Jay, don’t tell me you're drinking _alone_?”

He says it like it is the biggest possible crime in the universe. He says it like it breaks his heart a little.

Jason rolls his eyes at the conclusion Dick comes to. “Unlike you and your friends who will just about toss back anything, if I’m going to drink, I’m drinking the good stuff.”

“…Bruce’s secret stash?” Dick asks peering at him as though he is seeing him under a whole different light.

Jason barks out a sharp laugh and turns around to head back inside of his room. “Found it on my third night here so it's not much of a secret but sure, Bruce’s secret stash.”

“Jay, you’re _brilliant_.” Dick watches Jason settle on the bed before he is following too. He laughs a little at himself and reiterates it once more like it is some kind of revelation just hitting him now. “I wasn't nearly as smart at fourteen.”

It makes Jason pause.

Jason was never the biggest kid growing up, but he is not all skin and bones anymore, Alfred makes sure of that. It is Jason’s turn to be lost in this conversation because he always thought this would go unsaid. “Dick, I’m sixteen.”

“No, you’re not.” Dick tells him, a matter of fact, settling down among the pillows and the blankets, looking like he has every intention to stay for good when he sighs in contentment. “You’re a freshman.”

Jason scrubs a hand through his hair, gives himself a moment before he is sitting up cross-legged to face his brother-not-brother.

“Dick, I’m also a street kid that was never in the system, I.” He pauses and there is a single prayer in his head that the other can be drunk enough to pass out right around now because it is hard to admit even if it is the truth. “I don’t think I’ve had a formal education since I was like ten years old.”

Without the inhibition, it is easy to think in simple terms of want and need.

Right now, all Dick wants is Jason and all he needs is Jason to be smiling a smile that isn’t painful, and like a moth to flame, Dick seeks that out. He reaches out, curls his fingers into the fabric of the worn red hoodie Jason has on and clings.

“I'll settle for a hug if you’d prefer, Jay.” Dick says, sitting up on an elbow and getting that much closer, determination in the set of his mouth. “But can I give you a kiss?”

He is serious, and Jason knows this.

It is mutual agreement that the alcohol allows Dick to reach out, fingertips grazing across Jason’s cheek. On a shuddering breath, Jason closes his eyes from behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Hey Jay,” Dick murmurs with Jason’s eyes closed to him, places a faint barely-felt kiss to dust across Jason’s cheek. “Are you okay with this?”

“Only if neither one of us remembers a thing in the morning.” Jason gives them both an easy way out, blinking open his eyes almost reluctantly to peer at Dick from beneath his lashes. “I can’t be the only one being held responsible for bad ideas.”

“Is that a yes?”

Jason turns his head, so Dick’s mouth is barely a breath over his, not quite touching but close enough for the implication to be clear when he leans in.

“It’s never going to be a no, Dickie.”

It is Jason who closes that scant distance, but it is Dick who brings both hands up to cup Jason’s cheeks on a tilt to kiss him right.

He kisses him insistently slow, has Jason opening up beneath his mouth in increments. He drags his tongue to his, pulls back a sliver for a shared breath before he is pushing his mouth over his all over again.

The room is quiet save for the soft noises slipping out with each kiss. Dick sinks his teeth down on the swell of Jason’s bottom lip, has him opening up wider on that alone. There is a groan that is swallowed right down and then another low whine that comes from the throat.  

They make out for a long time, the music muted behind their closed doors.

“Should you go back down there?” Jason asks, a little bit drunk on the easy way these kisses has him sinking deeper into his mattress while Dick lays halfway on top of him.

“Mmhmm, maybe later.” Dick murmurs in assent but not moving an inch, one hand still tangled in the red of Jason’s hoodie.

There is the sound of the bass a dull thump, thump, _thump_ running through the walls. Here are the two of them in a world of their own.

 

 

Dick Grayson wakes up to the sound of birds chirping an obnoxious song outside the opened window.

Dick grinds his teeth against the pain that feels all consuming, grabs a pillow from next to him and puts it over his head to muffle a world that is all noise. “Too _loud_ , Jay.”

His head aches, his lips feel sore and bruised, and he is in a room distinctly not his. It is not a particularly good morning as he stays still in this patch of sun-warmed sheets. The majority of last night comes back to him in snatches of conversations overlaid with music, hazy little moments filled with the stinging taste of alcohol burning on the way down.

“Too bad, _Dick_. Also, change of plans. You better get up now because you’re going to need all the time you can get before Alfred and Bruce get back to clean this house.”

He groans loud enough to make his own head throb because _oh_ , his brain has definitely caught up to the part of the night that explains precisely why his mouth feels like it's been bitten raw.  

“Give me a minute.”

There are far less holes in his memory than he anticipated, and he recalls exactly what he’s done.

“Aspirin’s on the bedside table, Dickiebird.”

Dick thinks he croaks out what must be _thanks_. He can beat himself up all he wants but what he doesn’t expect is the inhale he drags in among the sheets he’s buried his face into smells only of Jason.

He sits up too fast, his face entirely red.

Jason is kind when he just points at their shared bathroom before leaving him alone.

Dick is tempted to just fall back on to the bed and will himself into oblivion for a couple more hours because Dick isn't quite sure how he can look Jason in the eyes again. Bleeding heart or not, the need to comfort has not changed even if Dick is almost certain he could have gone at it a little bit differently.

Or really any other way that didn’t end with his tongue in his little brother’s mouth.

He swallows down the Aspirin with the glass of water next to it and follows the rest of Jason's wordless instructions.

When he gets downstairs, he finds Jason standing at the kitchen counter eating leftover slices of cold pizza and drinking flat cola. It's the breakfast of champions and Dick is joining him without another word.

They count the passing of time with slices consumed, and three slices each later, Dick asks around a swallow.

"Should we talk about last night?"

“No, we shouldn’t.” Jason tells him resolutely, tracking a trail of orange grease from his wrist with his tongue when he can’t find any napkins in their vicinity.

Dick doesn’t point at the box of tissues behind Jason, instead he simply looks away to say. “I really think we should. I don’t want it to be weird between us.”

The earnestness in Dick's voice is almost too much, Jason doesn't enjoy this if anyone has bothered to ask. “Too little, too late.”

“Little wing.” Dick starts, he is trying and maybe this is where he is getting it all wrong because Jason has no intention for him to finish.

“If it matters at all, I’m not clawing my skin off with guilt.” Jason turns to face him, an angry turn to his mouth before he falls back on annoyance and settles for that. “And if it doesn’t matter, then I don't regret it even if I probably should.”

Dick has no idea how to reply to that, and isn't that precisely the clearest answer Jason could be waiting for. Jason brushes the crumbs from his fingertips and downs the rest of the cola left uncapped from last night.

"Good talk, Dickie."

He watches Jason leave before he lets himself drop his head to the marble of the kitchen counter top.

He finds his phone somewhere on the kitchen table lighting up with notifications: eight missed calls and almost twenty messages. All of them demanding for his whereabouts some time after 1:00am when he went to find his wallet and possibly lost himself in Wayne Manor. He ignores them all with an uneasy breath and goes to find the heavy-duty garbage bags Alfred has.

Life moves on, regardless of whether Dick made out a little (a lot) with his brother-not-brother. It has to.

 

 

Jason is surprised it takes him this long before he walks in on them at the cusp of what has been building since before he was adopted into the fold of this family.

"Don't mind me," he announces to the room as he walks past them both to one of the bookcases behind Bruce's desk and switches one book for another.

Jason is not blind to the pull of Dick's shoulders or the taut line Bruce holds himself to.

When he finds them in the study, the two of them are looking like they are ready to go at this fight swinging with visceral pain to every strike that lands. It is almost a shame to see the worn ragged edges between them both when Jason knows the extent of their history and with so much of it good too. The man tries to be a father and there is something admirable to his attempt, but he is not easy to live with.

"I'm not going to change my mind, Bruce." Dick says, resolutely not looking at Jason who is taking his time to leave. Here is the thing: Dick has made up his mind and it doesn't matter who is present. He wants to get it all out, but Bruce isn't having any of it. "It's not always about you."

The man sees this as an impending teenage rebellion that is coming years later than expected. But this isn’t that and Dick isn’t sure how to begin to explain to Bruce that what he wants is not at all what Bruce can give.

Bruce looks at Dick, hurting in their matching stubbornness. There is something almost clinical to how Bruce relents in that way only he can. "We can finish talking about this when I get back."

All on his own, Bruce ends it at that.

Jason puts up a hand in a short vague gesture of _see you_ until their legal guardian is closing the door to the study behind him. Dick stays precariously still even when the door shuts with a final click.

"He reads you like an open book, Dickie. It's a _little_ bit about him."

"Jay, I don't want to get into it with you too." Dick tells him, an exhausted drop to his shoulders.

"What is it this time?"

Dick looks lost and incredibly sad but there is a whole lot of guilt to this admittance too. "Pizza."

"What?"

Dick drags a piece of paper from on top of Bruce's desk and shows it to him.

"Bruce pulled a literal receipt on you."

"Pretty much," Dick says with a sigh, looking more and more dejected. Jason narrows his eyes and almost has to whistle at the five hundred dollars worth of pizza on Bruce's bank statement. Dick's mouth just turns into a grimace. "Couldn't really explain it without coming clean about the party. And then it was all about responsibility and how I don't have what it takes to take over Wayne Enterprise, and I. Fuck, Jason. I can't do it. I can't be what Bruce wants me to be. I can't be _him_."

Bruce would rather run away on a business trip then stay two more minutes and talk about their expectations and how terribly they misalign. Bruce and him are in a good place, Jason thinks. Bruce and Dick are not, Jason _knows_.

Left on their own, it is easy for Jason to give Dick this.

"For what it's worth, I'm glad you're not."

Here is what he doesn't do often, crack himself wide open and show off every weak spot he has. But then again, it isn't everyday that he finds Dick looking like he is the one in need of comfort. Jason scrubs a hand across his face, runs it through his hair and muses up the white streak with the black. And then he steels himself to start.

"Did Bruce ever tell you why he decided to pick up a charity case like me off the streets?"

"You are not a charity case, Jase." Dick tells him, looking like he is ready to fight him on that.

"I'm a street rat with a spotty past, you can take a wild guess at the things I've done, and you’re probably going to get some of it right." Jason tells him. He doesn’t talk about this for a very good reason, it reminds him of the exact hand he was dealt in life. Jason stops himself as he thinks about it because the rule of thumb around these parts of his head is that he doesn’t get close and he doesn’t think hard about all those years. "I know exactly what I am."

Dick’s got empathy in spades, and he has never once been stupid even if he does do some pretty dumb things. Jason knows Dick has always had the suspicion but never did let himself confirm it quite like this.

Laid out in the barest of terms, here is the truth Jason keeps close to heart: He has no idea what he’s done to have Bruce or Alfred or Dick of all people to think he is worth a damn.

"Bruce caught me red-handed boosting the wheels off his Bentley. I had half his car sitting on cinder blocks and a wrench in one hand, and Bruce fucking laughs. I almost smashed his back lights for that." Jason says, hopping up on the edge of Bruce's desk to settle in. "He could have done anything, but he offered me all of this instead."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you look like you want to cry, and I’m shit at this." Jason gives him a grin that is lined with lead. "Sometimes it's nice to know someone's had a shittier life than you did, doesn't it?"

Still looking a little bit like he could cry, Dick points out with a crooked half-frown. "Not when that someone is you, little wing."

"That someone is always going to be me, circus boy." Jason reaches out and snags a hand into Dick's shirt to pull him between his legs. "What is that term you told me once?"

Dick has an idea what Jason is going to say next when he sets his hands down on top of Jason’s thighs, and it is almost refreshing to have all of his problems laid out so simply into these easy words.

"You have itchy feet, golden boy."

Jason kisses him and Dick sinks into it with relief.

 

 

He bodily backs him up against the bookshelves and stills at that, looking like he is deciding between telling or not. Dick isn’t sure where this is going aside from maybe those very conflicting thoughts in his head because he wants it, wants this, wants him so bad he has no other thought in his head except for how he shouldn’t want anything like this.

Jason settles for sharing. “Found this when I found Bruce’s secret stash.”

Dick watches as Jason reaches over to rummage inside one of the drawers of Bruce’s desk, raises an eyebrow when Jason comes back holding up the gold foil package. It glints in the light for a quick second before Jason is sliding down to his knees without effort, and brandishes his teeth to the zipper of Dick’s jeans.

Every thought of Bruce goes right out of Dick's head for a very good reason, but this is a very large step from a make out session with a brother-not-brother.

“Wait, wait, wait, Jay, _wait_.” Dick says, eyes wide. His hand goes to Jason’s hair in reflex, tries to pull him back an inch just so he can breathe, and then that too goes right out of him when Jason fucking _keens_. Dick’s eyes go wider, and they both go still.

Dick is looking down and Jason is resolutely not looking at him.

“Jay.” He starts, slow like he isn’t sure he should be pointing this out.

“Don’t make me say it.”

This doesn’t change anything, but it still has his heart hammering the loudest beat against his chest. Dick thinks it might leave a bruise at this rate.

“Jay,” says Dick, even softer this time. It downright scares him how much he wants to push to know more. “Was that good?”

Dick doesn’t pull, he drags the blunt edges of his fingernails back from the tangle of black and that striking stripe of white against Jason’s scalp until his hand is resting against the back of Jason’s neck to tilt his head up.

He has to look at him because there is no other way.

“Can you say it for me?” Dick asks like the answer is worth its weight in gold.

Jason swallows thickly, the simple motion feeling like something tremendous when they are so close. “I could make it better if you keep doing that,” he tells him as a sign of compromise.

Dick nods after a second, brings his hand back to Jason’s face, touches the edge of his mouth to the hollow of his cheek to the arch of his eyebrow before settling right back into his hair and taking a firm grip.

Jason pulls the zipper of his jeans down by his teeth, draws enough attention with that alone with how sinfully slow he goes, taking his time to pull him out of his briefs until he is placing the condom right against the parted _o_ of his lips.

Jason keeps his hands at Dick’s hips, doesn’t use anything else but his tongue and his mouth to roll the condom on fully. He takes a slight pause with each inch he sinks further down on, feeling that growing familiarity as he works his jaw a little looser. He swallows him down to the root, this time far easier than it is for him to admit to a partial truth. Dick does as he promised, yanks his hair hard enough to please, and Jason goes weak with another keen that has Dick muffling a groan into the crook of his arm.

The two of them are a positive feedback loop of some very good sensations.

 

 

It goes on like this, and it is probably hopelessly reckless.

But they do not stop.

The first time Dick sees Jason stripped down all the way, he is stunned. His hands do not stop even if his eyes linger like he wants to caress every inch. He aches at the sight.

"That's a whole lot of scars, Jay."

Jason laughs. "Gotham hasn’t exactly been nice to me."

It shows just how far the both of them have come when Jason doesn’t tense to the touch of Dick’s hands against his skin. "Can I?"

The rest of the question goes unasked, but it is all there. Dick wants to be kind, he wants to be the sweetest, softest thing that has happened to Jason Todd.

"I'm not stopping you."

Dick kisses his mouth before he is leaning low to press his lips to the puckers of cigarette burns, drags the flat of his tongue against the thin white lines of raised scar tissue. Dick is reverent where he doesn't need to be, pushes Jason's thighs apart to run a hand dripping wet with lube against the unmarred skin there.

"Wait," Jason says, sitting up and pulling back to turn on the bed so Dick can only see the line of his spine and each pronounced bump of his vertebrae instead. He tells him with his back turned to him. "Do it like this." _Do me like this_.

Dick sits back on his haunches, staring at Jason’s back with his mouth pressed into the thinnest line. "You don't like my face."

"I like your face just fine.” Jason doesn’t laugh at him and that makes Dick feel a little bit better about the whole situation. Jason continues. “Trust me,” he says and Dick does.

"So, what is it?" Dick asks, wanting to reach out and just touch but refrains himself with the dig of his fingernails into his palm. Dick is not at all sure he is allowed when Jason seems insistent on this last barrier between them.

"It's not you." Jason says, and it is final.

"Are we really having that conversation? It's not you, it's me?" Dick asks, incredulously while he is staring at Jason stripped down until he is just scars and skin, in his bed and atop these sheets, but still refusing to do this while _facing_ him.

"You started it. I can drop this anytime and actually get to the fun part of being naked like this."

"Little wing, I want to see your face and I want to know why you don't want me to see it."

"Dickie, don't tell me I didn't try to get you to drop this." Jason looks at him in warning, Dick doesn't back down.

Jason gives him one long pause before he gives in to Dick's request. He turns around until he is flat on his back, settles his shoulders into the pile of pillows underneath him. He is deliberate when he reaches down, spreads himself open almost roughly with two fingers and an arch of his hips.

"Let's fuck." Jason says it like it is a challenge. He looks up at Dick from beneath his lashes like he is daring him, bites down on his bottom lip hard enough to make it go bloodless, and Dick knows this trick is meant to make him regret his request but he barely has two brain cells left to put together a coherent thought.

Dick curses softly at the sight of Jason putting himself on display for him, the invitation filthy when his entrance is slick with lube and his cock is dripping precum. Vulnerability is a terrible look on Jason, it makes him uneasy down to the bone, but Dick thinks he has never seen anything better. "You're a menace."

It is downright easy to fall for this.

Dick pushes into Jason and the both of them groan, drawn out and throaty. He is tight, he is hard, and their faces are too close. Dick catches every expression on Jason.

"What're you afraid of, Jay?" Dick asks, pulling out slow, punctuating Jason’s name with a thrust that pushes him to the deepest part of him.

Jason digs his nicotine stained nails into the flesh of Dick's shoulders, bites down until it is just the hitch of his breath caught at the tip of his tongue. Jason doesn't cling, but he does hold on and Dick loves every little bit of this when he sees the sweat on his body and the cant of those hips to meet him halfway.

They keep up with a rhythm that can’t be easy on either one of them. But it doesn’t take long.

Jason comes without a hand on his cock, comes with Dick buried inside of him. It hits him embarrassingly fast and stupidly hard and leaves him blinking white from his vision. Dick uses his weight to keep him pinned to the bed as he fucks him through his orgasm. He only goes still to see the turn of Jason’s mouth pulling into the start of a grimace with him looking flushed with something that runs much deeper than a simple fuck.

Jason doesn’t let it get to him even if it does show on his face when he admits to it like it is a secret he keeps close to heart.

"This is what I'm afraid of."

Jason isn't really saying what he means but Dick is getting better and better with reading between the lines. This is what it means to have Jason admit to being able to come untouched and so easily when they fuck like this, and Dick has no idea what to do with this information aside from a freshly bruised rib cage with how hard his heart is pounding against his chest.

It is a revelation they do not voice, that he is so into him.

That this thing between them is mutual and he likes him so much more than either one of them should.

"Your turn, Dickiebird."

Before Dick can even register what Jason has in mind, he already has him flat on his back. A push of his heels against the mattress, he uses his weight to his advantage to have Dick splayed out against the sheets pooling halfway off the bed. Jason is straddling him with his thighs spread obscenely wide, Dick’s cock still filling him to the brim.

The wicked grin across Jason's lips is the only warning Dick gets before he is rising up on his knees and coming down _hard_.

 

 

Dick Grayson is a gymnast, he is also infuriatingly good at every other sport. He plays backup for the football team, the basketball team, the baseball team and has even stand in for the cheerleading squad when one of their backspot ended up with an injury a week before their final competition of the year.

To say Dick Grayson is _good_ is a bit of an understatement.

The football game tonight is just a fraction of the proof of that.

"You _reek_ , Dickie."

The locker room is emptied out except for him, it is really the only reason why Jason comes strolling in like he belongs.

"Well, I wasn't exactly doing much bench-warming tonight."

Jason catches him in the middle of changing out of his uniform, and Jason almost has to be proud at his impeccable timing. Dick looks downright ridiculous standing by his opened locker, shirtless and shiny with sweat, looking like a very wet dream even underneath the unflattering fluorescent lights. "I guess congratulations is in order, player 37."

"You saw the game?" Dick asks, shoving down on that bloom of delight because Jason is not much of a school spirit kind of guy. But he is _here_ for him.

"Saw that touch down from the back row of the bleachers." Jason says, and he isn't exactly crashing into him, but it comes close.

"Impressed?" Dick asks, wrapping his arms around Jason like it is reflex and pulling him close enough to shove him bodily up against the lockers.

Dick's ridiculous display of athleticism has him a little breathless to say the least, but it isn't really until moments like this where Jason can wrap his legs around Dick's waist and be kept in place against the metal locker doors that really turns him on.

"So much more now." Jason lets out with a rumble at the force of the pin Dick has on him.

 "The team is going to celebrate, you want to come?" Dick asks in between the open-mouthed kisses Jason is dragging him into. It is messy and greedy, and a whole lot sweet.

"Nah, Dickie.” He says, shaking his head, running his fingers into Dick’s hair to feel the grit of drying sweat, dragging his nails through until he is touching the cords of muscles in Dick’s neck. He leans in to press his mouth to Dick’s cheek. “You know that’s not really my scene."

Jason trails his lips from cheek to jaw, puts force and a little bit of bite into it to have Dick turning his head and baring his neck to him. He knows all of the places that makes Dick weak, and it shows just how well he knows him when Jason goes straight for every single one of those spots.

Dick is breathing harder than when he was on the field, running that last stretch of distance with the ball tucked into the crook of his arm. Jason has that effect on him and it leaves them both wrecked when the two of them are effectively rutting against one another.

There is one frozen moment where they catch each other’s eyes, the fear trickling in like ice when the door suddenly bangs open.

And then Jason is shoving him away, a breath’s distance to arm’s length in a fraction of a second. Dick lets him go, willingly, tight grip going slack from where he is holding Jason up by the back of his thighs. Jason is gone in a blink, turning around the corner of the lockers with near-silent steps, just in time for Wally’s voice to ring out.

“Dick! You still in here?” Wally calls out as he heads straight for where Dick’s locker is. He is looking around, almost confused that Dick is alone. "Did you see your brother?"

"Jason?"

"Yeah, he was looking for you so I pointed him this way like a couple minutes ago." Wally says with a tilt to his head.

"Oh,” Dick says, hoping he looks nothing like how he feels, heart in his throat and grasping at what is probably a very flimsy excuse that Wally might just see right through. “Jay came by already, grabbed my keys and left. You just missed him."

"You need a ride then?"

"If you can?" Dick asks, a hopeful lilt to his words, making sure he sounds as close to normal as possible, eternally grateful that he was playing football earlier and not basketball because at least now he has the protective cup to explain away the erection.

"No problem. You good to go?"

"Just let me put my stuff away, I'll meet you up front?"

Wally flashes him a thumbs-up and a grin before walking back out the way he came. Dick almost sags to the floor in relief at being this close from being caught with his mouth and his hands all over his adopted brother.

Jason comes out from behind the last row of lockers, hair disheveled and lips bruised, something a lot like resolute in his eyes. "That was close."

The thing is, Dick agrees.

"You should go to your thing." Jason says, eyes darting to the direction of the door and then back to Dick. "I'll see you at home."

"Wait, Jay." Dick hands him the keys to his motorcycle, fingers pressing hot against his palm, this is him wanting to hold on even if he can’t. He doesn’t let the resignation show. "Wals is out there. Back door’s that way."

"Thanks."

Dick watches Jason leave, and no amount of football games won can fill the pit of dread that opens up inside of his gut.

It is later when he is sitting between Wally and Kaldur in the 24-hours diner three blocks from their school, half eaten plates of greasy breakfast food spread out on the table between them and the rest of their teammates that Dick feels a buzzing from his pocket.

To say the very least, Dick saw this coming.

The text he gets from Jason is simple, it is short.

 

 

> It reads:
> 
>  
> 
> _we should stop_

 

Being ready for it doesn’t dull the pain one bit.

 

 

Time passes with the routine of each day running into the next, they are a blur and maybe that is for the best when the alternative is focusing on what was always going to be inevitable.

The night he comes home from the team’s celebration, Jason is already asleep. The next morning, they are standing side by side at the bathroom sink, taking turns spitting foam. Jason purposely doesn’t look him in the eye, and Dick is glad for it.

“It might not be like before, but nothing’s really changed.” Jason says, head tipped back as he puts on his contact lenses in habit.

“Of course,” Dick says with a smile that is smoothed over and not at all pained. He purposely doesn’t mention how enough of it must have shown on his face for Wally to shoot him uneasy glances and keep checking in with him during the entirety of their celebration last night. “We’ll always be good with each other, Jay. We’re family no matter what.”

Jason leaves him to finish up, and this is the extent of the comfort he gets.

Because it only gets worse, and this one is a long time coming too.

 

 

“We’ve discussed this, Dick.” Bruce says this like it is a warning, and maybe it is.

Dick is not keeping count of the days, but they are sitting at the dining table, halfway through dinner and partway through the same fight even if Bruce refuses to call it that.

“No, Bruce.” But Dick’s done with making the same argument. Dick puts down his fork and turns to look at his adopted father. “ _You_ discussed this without listening to a thing I had to say.”

“The business program at Gotham Univ—”

“I found a place in Blüdhaven.” Dick cuts in with finality, he ignores the hurt in the blue of Bruce’s eyes and keeps going. “I’m moving out after my graduation, I’m going to Blüdhaven, and I’m going to take the police exams for the BPD.”

Dick understands if Bruce wants to read into this as some kind of failing as his parent. And it might still be that, but Dick wishes that making the right decision for himself wouldn’t be so painful. Maybe he is still young and foolish and everything Bruce continues to warn him about, but he is learning the right choice is always the harder choice to make and this feels a lot like it.

The dinner drags on, the gentle scrape of silver against porcelain plates in place of conversation, they finish their last bite in silence.

“Dick,” Bruce puts down his glass and this is just as final. He says it like this is what is hard for him to swallow down. “If that is what you decided.”

Dick sets down his soup spoon and breathes out. “It is.”

“You are still expected at every holiday dinner, Master Richard.” Alfred says in the silence that settles, that same calming presence he has always been. And this is something that grounds Dick in all the uncertainty.

Dick smiles at Alfred, and resolutely does not look in Jason’s direction once. He is almost proud of himself for that alone. “I didn’t expect any less, Alfie.”

The lesson to learn here is that life goes on, whether you had your heart broken by your adopted-brother-not-brother or whether you made a decision for your near-future self that you cannot go back on.

 

 

The Gotham Knights wins one last time with their current roster of players.

Dick doesn’t think about how Jason is not at this game, and he thinks he is beginning to learn how to walk on his own two feet again when Wally doesn’t once glance to him with concern in his eyes during their mandatory celebration after the game.

Life keeps going without pause. The next day, Dick is sitting at their usual lunch table, half-zoned out with his sandwich unwrapped, one bite in and sitting lonely on his tray.

“Richard, you are the only one left.” Kori sits down in front of him, frown on her face when he only looks blankly back at her. “You have yet to decide who you will take to prom.”

Even if Koriand’r isn’t graduating until next year, she is part of the prom committee and has a fascination with keeping up with the latest promposals. On any other day, he can see this coming from a mile away but right now, he is sitting here with her and trying for a smile that looks so apologetic.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been with anyone, Kori. I don't really have someone I want to take.”

He takes another bite of his sandwich just so he doesn’t have to say anything else.

Kori reaches across the table, and he lets her take his hand. She looks a little bit sad, but that has nothing to do with how he was her first kiss and vice versa, and says. “But you had someone. You were happy.”

When Barbara sits down next to him, Dick has to wonder how much of this was planned.

“We noticed but we didn’t say anything because you didn’t.” Barbara continues like she has been here since the start of this conversation.

“Hello to you too, Babs.”

Dick looks over to her, sees the leveled gaze she settles over him, and knows himself to be a very lucky man. Barbara Gordon can probably pinpoint the exact night he’s had his heart broken wide open if she wanted and he wouldn’t be surprised. He just doesn’t think he was so transparent about it all to have her say it out loud like this.

“You were very happy, Dick.” Kori repeats, and it feels like an accusation he is not about to come clean to.

He pulls back his hand to run it down his face, gives them both his most convincing face and grins a grin he doesn’t feel an inch of. "I still am."

"You do not show it." Kori doesn't buy into it and Barbara doesn’t dignify his reply with a response.

"There's been a lot going on lately, but I'm okay now.” Dick takes a deep breath and tries for not lying through his teeth. He thinks he might be succeeding too when it eases that ache in his chest. “I don't have to be with someone to be happy, I've got you guys for that."

" _That_ , he's right." Wally says, dropping his tray next to him. Loud and just the right amount of abrasive to drag the attention right off Dick. "Because my boy right here is taking me to prom."

Barbara raises an eyebrow from Dick's other side to point out another fact.

"Only because Artemis is taking Zatanna and Donna and me to prom."

Kori looks delighted at this news, and she is excited to share it when Roy finally shows up at their table too. He knows they are collectively letting him off easy, just this time (like all those times before). Dick doesn’t really deserve any of them, and so he thanks them the only way he knows how.

He laughs at the outrage on Wally's face.

 

 

He ends up going with Wally, the two of them in matching tuxedos and it is almost fun.

They drink fruit punch with ridiculous little paper umbrellas and eat too much finger foods. It is nowhere enough to fill them up but it makes for some good memories when the school gymnasium is lit up in lights that glow their school's colours.

Wally dances in that way he does, scuffs his shiny dress shoes against everyone else's. Dick dances with Wally and Kori and Donna. He shouts over Roy and his band and lets himself be swept onto the makeshift dance floor to see the football team and the cheerleading squad and thanks everyone for all the good years they had together.

He has a good time, and in the rush of the music and the heat of the crowd, he can get away with not thinking about what is missing. So when he finds Barbara in the cooling night, wrapped up in a thin shawl the same colour as her dress right outside of the gymnasium, he sits with her.

“...You’re going to visit me in Blüdhaven, right?”

Barbara puts her head on his shoulder and says. “Only if you promise to come home once in a while.”

“Did Alfred put you up to this?” Dick asks, putting his head on top of hers. And he is not mad at all when it is such a fair request she makes of him. There is too much to this city he loves, and she is so much of it.

Barbara’s laugh has her shoulders shaking, a tumble of her red hair against his skin, and it reverberates through to him. “Would you believe me if I said Bruce did?”

He has no good answer to that.

They sit together in silence and it is comfortable in the way the two of them have always been with one another. The night air goes slowly colder even with how close they are to summer.

“Boy wonder,” Barbara turns to him, dislodging him. There is a bittersweet kind of emotion in the way she has her lips pressed into a thin line when she looks to him. “What’re you still doing here?”

He tries for any other answer except for the one she is asking for. “It’s barely even eight, Babs.”

She doesn’t tell him to go home, and that is probably much kinder than he deserves. She only fixes that stare on him, the one that is daring him to try that trick on her again. There is power to her words, and they both know this.

“Get out of here already, Dick.” This time, when she speaks, it is so gentle he almost doesn’t hear her.

The truth here is that Dick misses Jason sorely even if he shouldn’t, and she sees right through that. He relents, like she always knew he would.

Halfway through the night, there is a school prom without one Richard Grayson.

 

 

Cufflinks undone, bow tie loosened to hang at his neck, Dick is coming up the stairs of the manor to find Jason’s door wide open. The bright flood of light leaks across the hall, and Dick steps right into it.

Leaning against the doorway, Dick smiles tiredly at a brother he wants to call _mine_.

"Dickiebird, you're back early."

Jason is sitting up in bed with the spine of his novel cracked and he has on those black-framed glasses that Dick rarely sees him wear. Jason looks like everything Dick wants to stay for, and maybe this is the conversation they should have had to start with.

“Jase,” Dick breathes in and it is unsteady, “do you want me to stay?”

He is waiting for the answer that he should have asked for that first time he came clean at the dinner table.

“You want me to ask you to stay?”

Dick shakes his head, because this is his fear and here is the truth too.

“Good, I wouldn’t want you to stay either.”

Dick lets out a breath of air from his lungs with what has to be relief. He crosses that distance to collapse atop Jason’s bed, only lifting his head up to ask as an afterthought. “Want to get rid of me that bad, huh?”

“Nah, Dickie.” Jason tells him, dropping his book down on his nightstand and not moving away when Dick sinks deeper into the mattress. “Just biding my time to steal your room and your friends when you’re gone.”

Dick doesn’t really mind it one bit if he has anything to say about it. So, it turns out Roy isn’t just missing ninth grade chemistry, he also has a few more courses to play catch up on. He is glad that Jason is finding his place with Roy, Kori, that new foreign exchange student from Bana-Mighdall, and Bizarro too.

He likes the thought of Jason being happy here even without him.  

 

 

It is ten, it is eleven, it is twelve.

Time together runs together, and Dick isn’t so sure he ever wants to move from this spot on Jason’s bed. The room is bright, and Dick is almost certain Jason drifted off for a little bit there until he speaks up again.

“Dickie, remember that party?”

And Dick almost asks Jason how could he _forget_. Instead, Dick just nods.

“I didn’t drink that night.” Jason admits to it with the kind of frown that tests Dick when all he wants to do is to reach over to fix things.

“…Not at all?”

Jason shakes his head and the motion is enough to having Dick shifting a fraction of an inch closer. They still do not touch. “Not a drop.”

“You never told me, Jay.”

“I still don’t want to, but I figure you might want to know.”

Jason has basically just spelled out the implications for him, and Dick cannot believe himself. “Since then?”

Jason thinks on that, furrow between his brows, a slight scowl to the way he wishes he didn’t have to admit to. “Since before but yeah, that kind of cemented it.”

Dick wants to kiss him. He also promised himself he wouldn’t. Conflicted doesn’t begin to describe how he feels.

“Hey Jay,” he waits until Jason is looking at him that he continues. “I know how I feel about you and how you think you feel about me, but you deserve more than just me.”

Sometimes that is the hardest thing to swallow, that sometimes, it just doesn’t work out and it isn’t anyone’s fault.

Jason is looking at him and it is acceptance even if it does twist something painful inside of them both. Jason much prefers to deny that last bit, but everything else? He sees it the exact same way Dick sees them. Jason is willing to give Dick the time and distance to find his own life outside of this one.

“You can say no, but if I still feel the same in three years, do you have room where you are?”

Dick likes that his options are rigged in Jason’s favour.

 “Even if I don’t, I’m going to make room.”

“Then it’s a done deal, Dickie.”

Jason holds out his hand, and they shake on it for old time’s sake.

 

 

Dick graduates a month later and moves into an apartment in Blüdhaven.

Jason stays in Gotham and they keep in contact like brothers would. They text the occasional funny thing to each other, see the other at the mandatory Wayne Galas, and sit across from one another at the too wide dining table for the holiday dinners that keep Alfred busy in the kitchen the entire afternoon.

Jason stays in Gotham with the door that connects his room to Dick’s wide open and on the days when the silence gets under his skin, Jason switches out his leather jacket for Dick’s letterman jacket.

They do not go back on their words.

 

 

 

 

 epilogue.

 

There is the thought that Dick needs to experience life and Jason will experience the world. There is no question now. Dick is living this life of his and Jason has already lived a world outside of Wayne Manor. Jason steps foot into Dick’s apartment for the very first time and there is a feeling a lot like _welcome home_ that wells up in Dick’s chest.

“You’re a bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you, circus boy?”

“Nobody has called me that in _years_.”

Jason steps in close and Dick delights in the way he has to tip his head up to catch Jason’s eyes.

They can take it slow and sweet, but this is three years in the making. When Dick tugs him down with both hands curled around his jaw, Jason goes right where Dick wants him. The last of their shared patience is in tatters between them when he catches his mouth with his own.

They come to the same conclusion, years apart, that he is the one for him.

“Miss it?”

“Miss _you_ , little wing.”

He tells him, and this, right here, is the only place for him.

 

 


End file.
